Professional Python Handler
by Ash Stryder
Summary: Hannah Longbottom's romance has fizzled, not that she's complaining. But when some risque photos turn up and involve some snakes, she's reminded of the past.


Disclaimer: I own nothing, all of Harry Potter belongs to the wonderful J. K. Rowling.

A/N: For challenge 1 on the Test Your Limits Competition. I don't usually write Neville so hopefully this still works out okay :)

**Professional Python Handler**

Married life had treated the Longbottoms well. Hannah and Neville spent the past sixteen happily together and neither could mutter a bad word about the other. Their marriage was one for the story books and their friends thought of them as two parts of a whole rather than individuals. This never bothered Hannah, as she had the Leaky Cauldron to be her own person in while she was just Mrs. Longbottom to the people she had gone to Hogwarts with all those years ago. To the people of The Leaky, she was Hannah- a sight for sore eyes after a long day, a shoulder to cry on, or even the voice of reason that thwarted away firewhiskey inspired ideas.

Coming home from work, she looked forward to being Mrs. Longbottom. But there was no passion anymore. The spark that had kept them up at night for years seemed to have fizzled along the way. Appreciative glances turned to barely glancing up when the other walked in. Rushed encounters in the liquor room of The Leaky Cauldron turned into Hannah falling asleep before her husband finished grading Herbology papers. But she was taking it all in stride. Her and Neville were now in their forties and things were bound to slow down, she reasoned. Not that she didn't miss it, but that didn't mean that she needed to jump off the deep end and declare their marriage was a bust.

Those dramatics were saved for certain red-headed friends who were married to famous saviors. For Mrs. Longbottoms, although a wife of a savior as well, being patient and understanding was the way to handle these sort of things. She expected things to level out soon- for there to be romance at times and complacency at others.

What Hannah wasn't expecting was to find back issues of magazines hidden behind herbology texts as she reorganized their bookshelves. She was even more surprised to find them to be old Playwitch issues. Seeing as those types of magazines were also saved for certain red-headed friends, Hannah had no idea how they ended up there. What made her give up on expecting anything at all was who she found on the back cover when she through them on the floor.

_Master of Snakes_.

That was all it said in airy script in the corner of the page as a younger version of her husband flexed up at her while a large snake wrapped around his bicep. Hannah stared dumbstruck for a minute before looking around as if to see if someone had noticed her or the magazine despite being alone in her study. Slowly, she reached down and picked up the magazine, admiring the familiar body.

She flipped through until she came to what she was looking for- the center spread. She almost dropped the magazine again as she saw her husband giving her a smoldering look that had been so absent from her life recently. She blushed like a school girl to take in his nude body, his manliest parts only covered by the same snake from the back page coiling in front of him. Propped on his side, a young Neville sent looks and winks at Hannah while petting the coiled snake. Hannah stared at the page a moment longer before reading the blurb.

_Professional Python Handler._

_We've all heard of Neville Longbottom's heroism, but who would have known the man has had much experience with monstrous snakes? As Bachelor of the Month, we're wondering if any of you ladies out there are lucky snake charmers._

Hannah laughed and was still laughing when Neville came home a few minute later.

"What's so funny, Hannah?" he inquired, looking around the study to see the source of her amusement. Hannah smiled fondly at her husband, who now had a few more wrinkles around his eyes and a few extra pounds on his frame. But those wrinkles told the story of their lives together and the weight came as the stress of the war died down into the comfort of peace. This was her Neville, not the glossy young man who stared up at her.

"Nothing...I read something about someone I knew once," she placated, shoving the magazine back behind the books before greeting her husband with a chaste kiss. Staring into his eyes, she saw her love mirrored in them.

"Although," she said a bit more sultry, "I did read something about snake charming and thought I might give it a try."

Neville's eyes widened a fraction in surprise but he was spared from talking as Hannah's lips came to cover his. Neville lifted her up with the same ease he had in the past sixteen years and backed them into the couch.

"Well lucky for you, I just so happen to be a professional python handler," he laughed huskily against her lips before the both fell into each other.


End file.
